List of grammatical cases

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This is a list of grammatical cases as they are used by various inflectional languages that have declension.

Contents 1 Place and Time 1.1 Location 1.2 Motion from 1.3 Motion to 1.4 Motion via 1.5 Time 1.6 Chart for review for the basic cases 2 Morphosyntactic alignment 3 Relation 4 Semantics 5 State 6 References

[edit] Place and Time

Note: Most cases used for location and motion can be used for time as well.

[edit] Location

Case	Usage	Example	Found in
Adessive case	adjacent location	near/at/by the house	Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Lithuanian | Livonian | Tlingit | Tsez | Quechua
Apudessive case[1]	location next to something	next to the house	Tsez
Inessive case	inside something	inside the house	Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Ossetic | Tsez
Locative case	location	at/on/in the house	Azeri | Bangla (Bengali) | Belarusian | Chuvash | Croatian | Czech | Hungarian (only for some traditional town names) | Inari Sami | Latin (restricted) | Latvian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Polish | Quechua, | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovenian | Telugu | Tlingit | Turkish | Ukrainian | Uzbek (Note: the case in Slavic languages termed the "locative case" in English is actually a prepositional case.)
Pertingent case	in contact with something	touching the house	Tlingit
Subessive case	under something	under/below the house	Tsez
Superessive case	on the surface	on (top of) the house	Hungarian | Ossetic | Tsez

[edit] Motion from

Case	Usage	Example	Found in
Ablative case	movement away from something	away from the house	Azeri | Chuvash | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Inuktitut | Latin | Manchu | Ossetic | Sanskrit | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish | Uzbek
Delative case	movement from the surface	from (the top of) the house	Hungarian
Egressive case	marking the beginning of a movement or time	beginning from the house	Udmurt
Elative case	out of something	out of the house	Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian
Initiative case	starting point of an action	beginning from the house	Manchu

[edit] Motion to

Case	Usage	Example	Found in
Allative case	in Hungarian and in Finnish: movement to (the adjacency of) something in Finnish: movement onto something	to the house onto the house	Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish | Uzbek
Illative case	movement into something	into the house	Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Inari Sami | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Tsez
Lative case	motion to location	to/into the house	Erzya | Finnish | Tsez | Turkish
Sublative case	movement onto the surface or below something	on(to) the house / under the house	Hungarian | Tsez
Terminative case	marking the end of a movement or time	as far as the house	Chuvash | Estonian | Hungarian | Manchu

[edit] Motion via

Case	Usage	Example	Found in
Perlative case	movement through or along	through/along the house	Tocharian A & B | Warlpiri | Yankunytjatjara
Prolative case	movement using a surface or way	by way of/through the house	Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Tlingit
Prosecutive case	across or along	along the road	Kalaallisut
Vialis case	through or by	by way of the house, using the house	Inuktitut

[edit] Time

Case	Usage	Example	Found in
Antessive case[2]	before something	before the concert	Dravidian languages
Temporal case	(used only with time expressions) specifying a time	at seven	Hungarian

[edit] Chart for review for the basic cases

	interior	surface	adjacency
from	Elative case	Delative case	Ablative case
at/in	Inessive case	Superessive case	Adessive case
(in)to	Illative case	Sublative case	Allative case
via	Perlative case	Prolative case	Perlative case

[edit] Morphosyntactic alignment

For meanings of the terms agent, patient, experiencer, and instrument, see thematic relation.

Case	Usage	Example	Found in
Absolutive case (1)	patient, experiencer	he pushed the door and it opened	Basque
Absolutive case (2)	patient, involuntary experiencer	she crossed the ice; he slipped	active languages
Absolutive case (3)	patient; experiencer; instrument	he pushed the door with his hand and it opened	Inuktitut
Accusative case (1)	patient	she opened the door	Akkadian | Arabic | Azeri | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Esperanto | Finnish | German | Greek | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inari Sami | Latin | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovenian | Ukrainian
Accusative case (2)	direct object of a transitive verb; made from; about; for a time	I see her	Inuktitut | Persian | Turkish
Ergative case	agent	he pushed the door and it opened	Basque | Chechen | Dyirbal | Georgian | Samoan | Tlingit | Tsez
Ergative-genitive case	agent, possession	he pushed the door and it opened; her dog	Inuktitut
Instrumental	instrument, answers question with which thing?	with the house	Belarusian | Croatian | Czech | Georgian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Polish | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovak | Slovenian | Tsez | Ukrainian
Instrumental-comitative case	instrument, in company of something	with the house	Chuvash | Hungarian | Tlingit
Instructive	means, answers question how?	by means of the house	Estonian (rare) | Finnish (rare)
Nominative case (1)	agent	he pushed the door and it opened	nominative-accusative languages
Nominative case (2)	agent; voluntary experiencer	he pushed the door and it opened; she paused	nominative-absolutive languages
Objective case (1)	direct or indirect object of verb	I saw her; I gave her the book.	Bangla (Bengali) | Chuvash
Objective case (2)	direct or indirect object of verb or object of preposition; a catch-all case for any situation except nominative or genitive	I saw her; I gave her the book; with her.	English | Swedish | Danish | Norwegian
Oblique case	all-round case; any situation except nominative	concerning the house	Hindi | Telugu | Old French
Passive case or patient case	the subject of an intransitive verb or the logical complement of a transitive verb	The door opened	languages of the Caucasus
Pegative case	agent in a clause with a dative argument	he gave the book to him	Azoyú Tlapanec

[edit] Relation

Case	Usage	Example	Found in
Ablative case	all-round indirect case	concerning the house	Sanskrit | Inuktitut | Latin | Lithuanian
Aversive case	avoiding or fear	avoiding the house	Warlpiri | Yidiny
Benefactive case	for, for the benefit of, intended for	for the house	Basque | Quechua | Telugu
Causal case	because, because of	because of the house	Quechua | Telugu
Causal-final case	efficient or final cause	for a house	Chuvash | Hungarian
Comitative case	in company of something	with the house	Ingush | Estonian | Finnish (rare) | Inari Sami | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami
Dative case	shows direction or recipient	for/to the house	Azeri | Belarusian | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Georgian | German | Greek | Hindi | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inuktitut | Latin | Lithuanian | Manchu | Ossetic | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovak | Slovenian | Tsez | Turkish | Ukrainian
Dedative case (Respective)	related to	related to the house	Quenya
Distributive case	distribution by piece	per house	Chuvash | Hungarian | Manchu
Distributive-temporal case	how often something happens	daily; on Sundays	Hungarian
Genitive case	shows relationship, possession	of the house	Akkadian | Arabic | Azeri | Bangla (Bengali) | Belarusian | Chuvash | Croatian | Czech | Danish | Dutch | English | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Georgian | German | Greek | Icelandic | Inari Sami | Irish | Latin | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Norwegian | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovenian | Swedish | Tsez | Turkish | Ukrainian
Possessed case	possession by something	the house is owned by something	Tlingit |
Possessive case	direct possession of something	owned by the house	English | Quenya
Privative case	lacking something	homeless, without a house	Chuvash | Wagiman
Semblative case	Similarity to something	that tree is like a house	Wagiman
Sociative case	along with something, together with something	with the house	Hungarian | Ossetic

[edit] Semantics

Case	Usage	Example	Found in
Partitive case	used for amounts	three (of the) houses	Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Russian | Skolt Sami
Prepositional case	when certain prepositions precede the noun	in/on/about the house	Belarusian | Czech | Polish | Russian | Slovak | Ukrainian (note: this case is called lokál in Czech and in Slovak, miejscownik in Polish, and месны (miesny) in Belarusian; these names imply that this case also covers Locative case)
Vocative case	used for addressing someone, with or without a preposition	Hey, father! O father! Father!	Belarusian (rare) | Bulgarian | Croatian | Czech | Georgian | Greek | Hebrew (rare) | Hindi | Irish | Latin | Lithuanian | Macedonian | Polish (rare) | Romanian | Russian (rare) | Sanskrit | Serbian | Telugu | Ukrainian

[edit] State

Case	Usage	Example	Found in
Abessive case	the lack of something	without the house	Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Skolt Sami
Comparative case	similarity with something	similar to the house	Mari
Equative case	comparison with something	like the house	Ossetic | Tlingit | Tsez
Essive case	temporary state of being	as the house	Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Inuktitut | Middle Egyptian | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Tsez
Essive-formal case	marking a condition as a quality	as a house	Hungarian | Manchu
Essive-modal case	marking a condition as a quality	as a house	Hungarian
Exessive case	marking a transition from a condition	from as being a house	Estonian | Finnish (dialectal)
Formal case	marking a condition as a quality	as a house	Hungarian
Identical case	showing that something is identical	being the house	Manchu
Orientative case	oriented towards something	turned towards the house	Manchu
Revertive case	backwards to something	against the house	Manchu
Translative case	change of a condition into another	(turning) into a house	Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Manchu

[edit] References

1. ^ Mentioned in: Catherine Fuchs, Stéphane Robert, Language Diversity and Cognitive Representations, 1999, 229 pages, Google book search page
2. ^ S. Agesthialingom, Prakya Sreesaila Subrahmanyam, Dravidian Linguistics- V: (proceedings of the Seminar on Dravidian Linguistics- V), Page 275, 1976 - 582 pages, Google book search link quote: "(6) 'before' (antessive), (7) 'behind, ..."